I think that's what finally caused Steve to go over the edge. Three months ago—a Friday morning I shall never forget—he stepped out of my shower, swathed himself in a white towel, and announced he was going to Central America to do a book. He needed time to think. The move, he explained, wasn't about us. He really wanted to spend a year down there with his Nikon, capturing the region's tentative processes of democratic transition. Besides, he was beginning to think we'd both gone a little mental about the baby.
Out came that special box of heartbreak again. I consoled myself we were just having a seventh-inning stretch, but the wisdom in that box told me I'd somehow blown it. The baby we hadn't created had become a specter hovering in the ether between us, ever a reminder of failure.
As a parting gesture, the never-say-die long shot, he left a "deposit" with Dr. Klein—for her liquid-nitrogen womb-in-waiting—enough for two final intrauterine inseminations. Later on today I was going to see her and find out if our last and final attempt had stuck. But nothing about my cycle was giving me any hope.
In the meantime, though, I had a movie to finish. We were shooting an interview at a five-story condominium building in Greenwich Village belonging to a woman named Carly Grove, who'd recently adopted. Her story was intriguing, but now—with my own hopes of ever having a baby down to two outs in the bottom of the ninth—well, now I had more than one reason for wanting to meet her. . . .
When I arrived, I lucked into a parking space right in front. Our security guy, Lou Crenshaw, was off today getting some city paperwork sorted out, but my crew was already upstairs—as director I get to arrive at a decent hour, though later on I also get to do lonely postproduction work till midnight—leaving our three vans double-parked, with a New York City Film Board permit prominently displayed inside each windshield. The building, formerly a Hertz parking garage, was near the end of Barrow Street, facing the Hudson River, and was filled with artists and entrepreneurs.
The truth was, I wanted to get the interview on film as soon as possible. I was more than a little worried Carly might decide to get cold feet and back out. She'd started to hedge when I had one last confirming chat with her last night, something about a "no-disclosure" agreement she now remembered signing. This had to be a one-take, all-or-nothing shoot.
Which was why I'd sent down the full gang this morning, not just the "key" personnel as I'd initially planned. Leading my (motley) crew was the director of photography, first cameraman Roger Drexel, a grizzled veteran with a ponytail who'd been with my producer, David Roth and his Applecore Productions, from back when he did beach movies and splatter films. He worked with the production manager, Erica Cole, our lipstick lesbian, who coordinated crew schedules. The second camera was handled by Greer Seiber, recently of NYU film school, who was so happy to have a job, any job, she acted as though David's previous string of low-budget, B-flick epics were remakes of Gone With the Wind.
Scott Ventri, another Applecore old-timer, was key grip, the guy who got the gear on and off the vans, set it up, and signed off on safety regs. Today he also was responsible for blacking out windows and setting up lights. The chief electrician, gaffer, was Ralph Cafiero, who'd come down the previous day and temporarily hot-wired the circuit breaker in the apartment to make sure there was enough amperage. He and his lighting "crew," another bright-eyed (and cheap) NYU grad named Paul Nulty, had arrived this morning ahead of everybody else to pre-light the "set," a northeast corner of the apartment.
I'm always a little hyper about sound, so I'd asked Tony Wills, who handled recording, to also come down the previous day and record the "tone" of the living room, the sound when there is no sound, in order to have it available for editing. Today he'd run the boom mike and be assisted by Sherry Moran, his latest girlfriend, who was mixer/recordist. For Carly's makeup and hair, I had Arlene Morris, an old friend from all the way back to my early days as an AD on the soaps. . . .
I rang Carly's bell and she buzzed me right up.